


Sky On Fire

by lesbomancy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6078366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short drabble about a robot who gets left behind... because nobody cares about poor wee robots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sky On Fire

A healthy red sunset slowly gave way to a corrosive and rancid mixture of greens and browns. The smell of sulfer and burning metals wafted from ground zero, fire illuminating the already dark, nameless industrial sector of a far-off colony. Those without some sort of air filtering device were falling to the ground and barfing up chunky, bloody bits of their innards.

SAHI-9, or “Nine” for short watched in utter horror as humans around it began to topple over and spasm, the artificial humanoid’s eyes drawn to the fires in the distance and the sickly, green billowing death heading closer over the workshops several blocks away.

Building caught fire, pieces of them melting underneath the strange substance. One panicking human blindsided Nine as they ran for the worker’s tram. It fell over, it’s elbow joints screeching loudly as they hit the concrete flooring.

Fear was a new emotion to Nine, one rarely explored as it came to terms with the concept of sentience in a section of the galaxy where it wouldn’t be dismantled for figuring out it had it’s own consciousness. Usually there were baby steps of joy, disappointment or resentment. Envy was a popular one as Nine began to wish for a more humanoid body.

But fear? Fear was all that Nine could feel. A heavy, overwhelming anvil strapped to it’s processing. Holding it in place as the clouds twisted and contorted, fires pluming out from random spots in the industrial park where the gaseous substance made contact. Everything it touched was incinerated or changed, people nearly a mile away spontaneously dying from the very presence of the gas.

Nine managed to push itself to a stand, slowly and deliberately as it’s eyes were locked with the encroaching cloud. The blaring klaxon alarm indicating for everyone to evacuate snapped Nine back to reality. The human here - they were running for the tram!

I should get out of here!

Jointed, mechanical feet clicked on the flooring as Nine shifted it’s head away from the mass of death and pointed itself for the worker’s tramway station. It wasn’t a combat or pleasure model so it’s physical movement was only what was necessary on an assembly line or with clerical work. Nine was slow, lumbering and unbalanced.

Nine was also rickety, old and severely rusted in several areas from the intense industrial work it had been subjected to in the past. Far off in the distance behind the worker’s tramway was a cruiser simply sitting in the sky with it’s shields engaged, an orange shimmer encasing the jagged floating monolith of metal and advanced technology.

It did not look colonial.. nor of United Earth Country design. It was different, perhaps a corporate vessel? Small T-shaped drones fluttered near the vessel, their “eyes” clicking off wildly at the scene. Why were they taking pictures? Shouldn’t they be getting out of here?

By the time Nine reached the tramway the read-out above the monorail track had a thirty second countdown until the next train. It hoped they would still send them back, the likelihood of surviving such a corrosive substance without escape being next to nothing.

The cruiser hovering in the distance closed distance with the clouded sky, the deafening rocket propulsion and teeth-chattering force from the anti-gravitational projectors making Nine feel as if it’s body would fall apart at any minute. It looked up at the cruiser, noticing it’s non-zero G weaponry unfurling from compartments and turning their barrels towards the discolored sky.

Ear-shattering barrage after barrage of metallic cracks rang out across a good few thousand miles, weapon shockwaves shattering weak glass and causing Nine to nearly stumble into the tramway track. It quickly regained it’s balance long enough to hear a wild, unnatural chortle from the sky as the gas seemingly took the impact from the weapons as if it were a solid creature.

Flickers and flashes of dusky, fleshy pieces in the cloud were captured by Nine’s enhanced vision during the impact of the cruiser’s rounds, clearly indicating that the sky wasn’t the sky anymore.. or was it? Nine lacked the data to come to a conclusion other than to “run,” and the tramway countdown had become irrelevant as the screeching of the monorail indicated that Nine would likely escape along with the few survivors from before.

He had hoped they were safe. Everyone was always so nice and generous. The tram’s doors opened and Nine moved to step inside as another barrage from the cruiser’s guns cracked the sky in half, a wet-orange liquid raining from the space that was once filled with sickly looking gas.

It incinerated the tramway’s ceiling and the steel plate flooring, the heat and stench wafting off of the areas where the liquid landed, melting nearly anything that could catch fire and destroying it.

Nine hit the emergency close button, the synthetic becoming quite concerned as the “sky” flashed again to that fleshy, solid substance before turning once more to gas. The tram slowly picked up it’s pace as the doors closed, racing to match speeds capable of flinging normal humans towards the back of the car.

They grasped the leather rope at the top, however, keeping themselves in place as they watched the gas encircle the cruiser and begin to melt it’s exterior. Guns fired and misfired, taking chunks of the sky and sending the orange liquid about what used to be a car factory. Escape pods attempted to launch, their material disappearing into the cloud as if they never existed.

Nine was absolutely horrified, certain that if it had a working heart that it would have stopped by now. The level of destruction was so unnecessary, so strange. What was going on?

While Nine never got it’s answers, the flash of the gas becoming a singular corporal entity as it snapped the cruiser in half and melted it like a plastic toy on the oven embedded itself into it’s hard memory forever.


End file.
